Señora Maria Taffola Interview

Collection: Local History Audio Interviews

Interviewer

A.W. Holt

Interviewee

Señora Maria Taffola

Transcription

PREFACE
This tape collects precious memories, affords a view of the
Mexican Revolution, contains geographical information flora and
fauna,- legends, cherished attitudes, and preserves an older dialectical language that is leaving here as the old people die.
The Gonzalezes wish that their grandmother could have had an oral history interview ten years ago when she had more memories to tell. Marfa Tafolla is nearing one hundred. Her baptismal records were destroyed during the revolution in a fire that burned the chapel wherein they were contained. She is also blind. We talked during a time when she could remember.
 
ORAL J-M STORY
5ENORA MARIA TAFOLLA
29. APRIL, 1977 INTERVIEWER: A.W. HOLT EDITED
INTERVIEWER: Today is April 29, 1977 and we have here as narrator
Mrs. Tafolla. What were your mother and father named?
MRS. TAFOLLA: Macedonia Hidalgo and Librada Garcia.
INTER.: And how old are you now?
MRS. T.: To be truthful, I don't know, not to lie to you! I'm
going to ask mother [She calls her granddaughter Mrs. Elsie Gonzalez her mother], to see if my mother knows to gather it and tell it to the 1ady.
MRS. GONZALEZ: She's about 97- July 25, l879, We did find
some papers. • The little chapel she was baptized in was burned.
And they were just fragments of papers left. And so we did find some, oh, her marriage certificates and things like this, but we didn't find any of her birth certificates or anything. So then we got what we could from the fragments that were found.
INTER.: Where were you born, senora?
MRS. T.: Well, it's that I told you I truthfully don't know
effectively, really....
MRS. G.: Where were you born? Where was it that your mother bore you?
Where were you baptized in the same little town?
MRS. T.: I think so! In the temple (chapel).
MRS. G.: Yes, but where was that?
MRS. T.: Well, I remember the name of the little town.
An exasprating thing.

MRS.G.:

MRS. T.:
MRS. G.: The rancho. And doesn't it have a little chapel?
MRS. T.: Yes, only that.
MRS. G.: Chapel, you know, very, it was very poorly made you know,
little chapel. And she used to tell me all of this.
INTER.: How many brothers and sisters did you have?
MRS. T.: One little brother and three sisters.
INTER.: What were their names?
MRS. T.: One was named Rufina. Another was named Luisa. And another
C1eojas.
MRS. G.: And the little brother?
MRS. T.: No, I don't know. I don't think he even reached baptism,
INTER.: And what is your name?
MRS. T. : Maria Tafolla, at your service.
INTER.: How was Mexico during your childhood? For example,
what was your house like your neighbors, what memorable happened?
Who knows, who will remember.
You, you, mama. You remember, of the rancho and the village. Oh yes, of Guayavito. Guayagvito de Guzman. Unhuh.
Tell her about the that rancho.
MRS. T.: It is a much loved hacienda, true? One passes the time
there doing a nonsense and a half! With the animals, the hens, the hogs, the cows, every little thing, doing things there. Gathering them and reining them, a powerful headache. Yes. [It was headed by] a dueno, a mayordomo [administrator].
MRS. G.: The papatuto or the papa'?
MRS. T.: The father [of the family of the rancho] That's what he was. And the other mandadero.
MRS. G.: Mandadero that means a foreman. He who gave orders to
the people. Her Spanish is different than what you and I have learned today through more cultural speaking. It was very crude, no education, you know. And the Indian was very prominent, but the language
had already disappeared. It had dissipated, you know. But the Spanish itself was a very crude Spanish. So, thing that she will say, you will have to kind of guess at, like you know the word tina (tub, large earthenware jar) isn't the same as where you go to today's people. It just doesn't, you know, what is she talking about, what is it? You know. And there's just a difference in her
INTER.: Spanish.
MRS. G.: Yes.
INTER.: O.K. You lived in Mexico some thirty years before the
revolution.
MRS. T.: Yes.
MRS. G.: Tell her, mama, about the revolution, mama".
MRS. T.: We came from there because we could not endure it, it
was very severe. It was insupportable. It was very terrifying. Instead of helping the people, it was backwards, they would die.
MRS. G.: Who were the people who passed through your rancho?
MRS. T.: Well any.
MRS. G.: You don't remember the generals who passed through there?
MRS.: T.: Yes.
MRS.G.: Well, tell her.
MRS. T.: What 1 can't remember is the name.
MRS. T. : Yes. They are the Colorados.
MRS. G. : The Carranc istas, the Vilistas.
MRS. T. : Yes.
MRS. G. : Yes!!! She went through all of that. 1 remember, one
story, very impressionable. Her youngest sister was- mama, tell her about the sister that you hid under the big basket. Tell her! Go ahead!

MRS. G.; But the people-what did they call them? You used to talk with me about the Colorados.


MRS. T. : I didn’t find anything else. I said, "What will | do!
Here I am, looking, looking frantically." Well I would touch here touch there, touch here again (thinking about where she could hide her). "Well, what will I do, what will I do."
MRS. G.: Tell her how you sat on it.
MRS. T.: Oh it's funny! [The revolutionaries were there] and
I said to myself, well what will I do! Wounding here, wounding there, a drum sounding here and there and over there, and I said, What will I do, what will I do! Well, then, then I saw the basket and I said,
"Okay, l well here is this thing.” Then 1 said, "Sit down." She sat down and let's see. She did not know where, nor how, nor when. And they remained just looking well, since they did not know where she had gone to so, so rapidly, right?
MRS. G.: Well you sat down in on it, and you wouldn't move!
MRS. T.: Well, no, I said, if I move, it will be throwing my hands up
[giving up].
MRS. G.: Do you know what's she's talking about? Her sister, that
still was unmarried, and to the Mexican people, you realize what a young lady means to an older brother or sister or parents,
INTER.: Umhum.
MRS. G.: All right.
INTER.: Responsibility.
MRS. G.: Umhum! The people, guerristas came through the village or
the hacienda. And she was an orphan by then. She had this young sister, fifteen, sixteen at the time and she couldn't find how to hide her, So she, a chunde is kind of these big tall baskets, kind of things. So she's told her sister to, you know.haunch down on her haunches and sit down. And she put the chunde over her. And she sat on the chunde. And these guerristas came through. Love, money or hell could have broken loose-they didn't get my grandmother off that chunde! She told them, "You want anything, you go get it." And she sat there. And that's the only way she saved this young girl, because they either raped them right there or they would pick them up and throw them over the horse, and take. And she saw all this, yes.
Tell her about those who killed on the rail, who had the children, in their arms and who always killed them.
INTER.: Oh, no,
MRS. G,: Oh yes, this is what brought them to the United States,
Tell her, Grandma.
MRS. T.: They were, well very, how would I say it, very angry and
Exceedingly, rebellious towards their laws, not just to our laws.
Our laws they didn't love. They deprecated ours, everything.
And they wanted to quarrel in everything, true? And well no, no, we said that no, that it was not possible that they came to throw us off our ranch. The ranch had cost us a lot of money. Well, how could they conduct themselves. "You are without rights because you did not talk, because you did not say something until now." Well, one cannot. Tell me, tell me no [it is not so]. They said yes, we said not to do it. It was a terrible battle that we were involved in, when that thunder arrived so strongly.
MRS. G.: The one they killed on the railroad track, he was a nephew
of yours, wasn't he?
MRS. T. Yes. Umhum. Yes.
MRS. G.: And didn't they come after him?
MRS. T.: I don't know [in English]. That is, yes.
MRS. G.: How did they kill him, Grandma? You told me that they seized the child in their arms and they arrived.
MRS. T.: Oh yes, Elsie. Those ones seized, they put on my father's clothes. And they left their clothes. Well, how were they going to recognize them? Well, those clothes weren't worth anything. It was very devious.
MRS. G.: The nephew was of the other party? He wore a uniform
of another party.
MRS. T.: Yes.
MRS. G.: He belonged to another revolution, another party.
And they changed their uniforms. And they came into Grandma's house. And they put on clothes that belonged to Grandpa. And I believe there was another-whose child was it they grabbed,
Grandma?
MRS. T.: It was of one of the men who had brought help.
from the other people and the track was close, perhaps.
MRS . T. : In the middle of the road in the middle of the ranch
MRS . G. : The track went in the middle of the ranch. And they
shot them there-face forward in the middle of the track.

MRS. G.: They gave help, those good people, when they were swindling them and they carried babies. And those who came behind them seized the babies and they thought, on seeing us with the creatures in their arms that they are going to say, "It's not them. It's other people. Fathers." No, they took them away and snatched up the children
MRS. T.: There in front of the house.
MRS. G.: They held onto the children. And the bad thing is that
they covered their heads so they would not see that they were going to shoot them. And the soldiers arrived, and they shot them in the middle of the track. The story is that Grandma used to-- it's very interesting--it was. I had the stories that Grandpa and Grandma used to tell us as children! We didn't need story books! We didn't need fairy tales and things, you know. Oh, they'd tell us about myths, about superstitions, beliefs.
INTER.: Say about Quetza1 coat 1?
MRS. G.: Yeah. La Llorona (The Crier). Oh, that used to send
shivers up and down our spines and we couldn't go to sleep, 'cause, oh, yeah! The Llorona, do you remember about the Llorona, Grandma?
MRS. T.: Umhum. Yes. Every time she would go out.
MRS. G.: When the Llorona went out?
MRS. T.: Umhum.
MRS. G.: And why is it that they called her "La Llorona"?
MRS. T.: Well, because she went around with an unpleasant appearance.
She did not comb her hair, she didn't dress up, she did not tidy up, nothing, not a bit. She did not fix up at all. She walked around like a little old crazy woman. That's how she walked around.
MRS. G.: Different people have different beliefs of why the
Llorona came to be. And, I've heard her version. She was a wife, and never attended to her hygienic self, or you know. Now the other version I've heard is that her child was drowned. Or she drowned it. I'm not quite sure. It's been a long, long time since I've heard it. But another version is something about her child, and she's still crying over her child that was either taken away from her and dropped in the river, or she couldn't save it, or it has something to do with her child.
INTER.: And that was one of your childhood stories.
MRS. G.: Umhum. And that was one of my childhood myths. And we'd love
to sit around the fire, these old fashioned potbellied stoves we used to have, and listen to Grandpa and Grandma talk about fairytales and myths and you know, even, even the revolutions that they went through. To us, it sounded unbelievable. You know, such terrible things to have to stand up and watch and see. And to every day of your life to get up or go to bed with such fears. And so, we really didn't need any books to learn.
I NT.: (I asked Maria Tafolla how she felt about the revolutionaries.)
MRS. G.: How did you feel when the people came?
MRS. T.: Well, how was I to have felt? Well, dead, dead my body,
scared owing to those such horrible things.
MRS. G.: Tell the woman about Grandpa, when they hung him when they
wanted the keys.
MRS. T. him. : Ah, yes. Well, they hung him they were going to execute
MRS. G. : From where did they hand him? How did they hang him?
MRS. T. : By a foot. By a hand.


MRS. G.: A thumb and a toe. That was their favorite way, where they would
you know, and by the time that poor body was hung, you know, the toe was out of joint and the finger, you know. It must have been such excruciating pain. His ribs were all fractured-l remember that.
Grandpa, when he got up into age, and the cold would get to him. His whole rib cage would hurt terrible because of all the breaks and fractures. This party came through and they wanted the keys to the granaries.
And he was a mayordomo.
MRS. T.: No they did not want to because he was a, no, a caballerango.
MRS. G.: What is caballerango?
MRS. T.: To take the horses out to pasture.
MRS. G.: But he carried the keys for all the cattle, and all the
MRS. T.: He did the work of mayordomo and of the
MRS. G.: He was a big shot there at the hacienda.
MRS. T.: Yes. All that. For that reason, the army came down on him,
wanting to burn him.

 
MRS. G.: And finally, Grandpa said, "You fools, if you want the
keys so bad, don't be so stupid. Just tear the doors down.
They're made out of wood!" No, but it was just the idea of torturing somebody. Because Grandpa was better off than the average. He was a better worker, I guess. And these parties didn't like anybody that would be a little higher qualified or had a better job, I guess, earning better. 'Cause Grandma said she even had? she had all her animals when she was married to Grandpa, by the time she was married to Grandpa oh four of five years. She had goats, a cow, her pig, and they would fatten them up for, you know, the killing, the slaughter.
MRS. T.: Much work my father got a hold of. So much work. He would be dead tired till he dropped, when he went to sleep. Oh my, how he moaned.
MRS. G.: She says her daddy worked hard from sunup to sundown.
And worked hard. But they had everything. She was never really poor. She was a hard working girl, a hard working woman, and her mother was too, and all the kids. But that's all they knew was work, because the idea was that that was the only way that they could have anything, you know, was to work for it. And after, when she married Grandpa, she did the same thing. She even had a sewing machine! She had her sewing machine, to sew on. And you know in those days, if you had a sewing machine, you were rich, if you had a sewing machine to make your own clothes on.
And, they'd sell their pigs. She'd sell her eggs, and her cheese and the milk from the cow. Still leave enough for the use of the house and the family. And with this, she said she'd buy her materials and things like this. Grandma, you had a sewing machine.
MRS. T.: Yes,
MRS. G.: How did you buy your sewing machine?
MRS. T. : Oh, very well in insta11ments , a payment, the first
day of each month, an installment each first day, I signed an i ns ta11ment.
MRS. G.: But when you came from Mexico, you had to sell it,
didn't you?
MRS. T,: Oh, well, yes. Then I closed everything. I didn't
leave anything, not anything. Because they wanted everything.
They wanted the duenna (proprietess), to dominate her, to subject her, to do to her whatever they wanted. But they couldn't, because the father was of Father Hidalgo. And he won the war by slingshot and stick fighting.





MRS. T.: Yes, umhum, yes. This was very

MRS. G.: She's from the Cura Hidalgo line. Yes, her last name is
Hidalgo. Her maiden name is Hidalgo.
MRS. T.: That was very strong, because it was the Federa1 (Government
troops against the peasant ). Yes, because of that, because with the Federa1, no one was to do anything to them. Nobody.
MRS. G.: And if they start a battle, what happened to them?
MRS. T.: Well, they die. All those who were on top of him died.
Those with ambitions, there die little ones, there die big ones, there die those of the size that they are. There it ends.
MRS. G.: They clean house. The people, the family they have no respect,
nothing or nobody.
And then after they finished with the human beings, then they picked up what material things that they wanted. Just cleaned it! She saw many of her people tortured, many of her neighbors , her people left destitute, after working so hard all their lives for it.
INT.: And were your mother and father still living then?
MRS. T.: Yes, and for that reason I could not breathe. I was the feet,
my father was the head, my mother
MRS. G.: While she's here, I don't want to put her in a home. My conscience wouldn't let me. 1 will some day when 1 have arthritis and if it ever gets out of hand to where I can't handle her. I will have to. But with a heavy heart. My people don't give our children away, regardless who or what they are. We have all the babies in the world, whether legitimate or illegitimate. That's your flesh and blood. And flesh and blood comes from God regardless of how it got there. And you don't throw it away like you throw a piece of mea t.
( Mrs. Tafolla makes a comment on envy of her father's circumstances during the revolution.)
MRS. G.: Who didn’t like you Grandma?
MRS. T.: E1 pueblo pavon.
MRS. G.: Because you were daughter of whom? Of Macedonia?
The pavon she refers to was a table tapestry of rich fabric such as silk or satin. She was speaking figuratively of the family's status. 
~ • ■ -





MRS. T.: Yes.
MRS. G.: Unhuh. Macedonio her father was a very strict nan.
MRS
of . T.
the : They didn't couldn't do anything against the family Federal.
MRS . G. : Papa wasn't a Federal, or was he?
MRS . T. : Yes.
MRS . G. : Oh he was a Federal?
MRS . T. : And a big one. One very.high up.
MRS
the . G.: The Federal, what was it, like the ranch? police, who policed
MRS. . T. : All, all. All humanities (parties) want to win.
MRS. G. is here do with : He belonged to the city court, like , or something like this. He was law. the law. I'd forgotten about that. oh, maybe the counci He had something to

He had very, very high morals.

MRS. T.: Yes. He was a very high man in every way (of everything).
And because of that it came back to the family, right? And they said that family is not good. That that family was very bad.
Because they kept us at a distance. We battled with that a lot.
And they said, no,no, don't do that! And at times, I did not do it, right? But to him, a punishment came. Because he had a hand in everything. He was of the first flag. It was the first flag that they had to turn. Adelante! (Forward, Charge!)
Adelante! Adelante! All the time, all the time.
MRS. G.: And your father was of the first flag.
MRS.T.: Of the first flag, he was a Federal. Because his father
had worked in that of the Cura Hidalgo.
MRS. G.: Her grandfather, her father's father belonged to the
Cura Hidalgo Party. Can you tell us more about the Cura
INTER.: Can you tell us more about the Cura Hidalgo Party?
MRS. G.: Do you know more about the Cura Hidalgo Party?
MRS.T. Oh, 1 knew a lot, a lot.
MRS. G.: But you have forgotten.
MRS . T. But, now 1 have stopped spelling it out and loving it.
MRS . G. : Well, you are very ancient, Grandma.
MRS. T. : Well, yes.
MRS. G. You are going towards one hundred years.
MRS. T. That's what they say, true?
MRS. G. : You have forgotten a lot.
MRS. T. grabbed : Yes. And before, 1 did live remembering those things, hold of me. It
MRS. G. : Well, you have forgotten a lot.
MRS. T.: grabbed : Yes. And before, 1 did live remembering those things, hold of me. It
MRS. G. : : Well, you have forgotten. Don't you have other things to do?
MRS. T. : For you to see that you forget everything in this sad life.
MRS. G. : Yes, Grandmother, yes.
MRS. T.: it ends, is that In this sad life, it is endinq, it is endinq. Endinq And because of that reason, we are suffering so much, not so? until


(Edited)
MRS. T.:(She mentions her social standing in Mexico, that of her father, that of her husband.)
MRS. T.: Refugio Tafolla. Because my father-in-1 aw was Ventura Tafolla.
Andrea Ortiz (was my mother-in-law). That was the name. And for this reason, one finds oneself very rich, is that not so? Because he still had his parents. Someone to speak for him. But after they died, everything got blander.
MRS. G.: You can't be any richer if you have father and mother. You can't
be any richer. I don't care how much money you've got.
You're not rich unless you've got your father and mother. And that's because father and mother are everything to our race, to our family.
MRS. T.: Umhum.
INTER..: How old were you when you got married?
\
MRS. T.: What a terrible thing! Well, twelve. Twelve years.
My father was going to take me to Guadalajara, and they didn't let them.
(Edited)
Mrs. Gonzalez talks of how many Mrs. Tafolla's

great grandchildren do not know Spanish.
MRS. T.: (She talks more about old age) There isn't light any
more. Things are ending.
INTER.: How was your trip when,you came from Mexico?
MRS. T.: Oh, very hard.
INTER.: Did you wa1k?
MRS. T.: Yes. By foot.
MRS. G.: Tell her how you came from Mexico.
MRS. T.: Well, walking over hills and mountains and
MRS. G.: Jung 1es.
MRS. T.: Umhum. Everything. Ay, they slashed the wide skirts,
where they took out the little piece. Some bush would take out a piece of material.
MRS. G.: Guisache is a bush, stump, something of this sort.
A genero is your material, when your skirts, you know they has these full skirts and petticoats and all. Las faldillas. And they would get caught on a bush, a stump, or something. And you could just hear them rip where the piece of and they couldn't stop to pick up the piece, they had to keep going. So they were in shreds.
INTER.: Did you bring foods or what did you do about eating?
MRS. G. : Tell her about the trip, Grandma, how you existed when
you came.
MRS. T.: Well, I don't remember.
MRS. G.: Grandma.
MRS. T.: Well, the truth of God that now look and see that my
mind only betrays me.
MRS. G.: The truck on which you came? The train.
MRS. T.: Yes, a cargo train.










Yes, Yes, because it wasn't a - it wasn't a—
INTER.: Passenger train.
MRS. T.: No, it wasn't, it wasn't a--
MRS. G.: They threw them into the cargo train like animals.
MRS. T.: Yes. Yes that's how they enclosed us there.
MRS. G.: And you were taking along my little father? She was taking
my father by the hand. My father was just a little boy. How old was my father?
MRS. T.: I think five. Umhum. Yes. He was very little but very
courageous. He became a man of much valor.
MRS. G.: Five year old taking care of his mother. See, Grandpa
was already here. Grandpa was already here. But you were indeed bringing money, weren't you Grandma?
MRS. T.: Oh yes.
MRS. G.: You were carrying money that Grandpa had sent you. Grandpa
was here working. And in those days-
I NTER.: For the Santa Fe?
MRS. G.: No, no the coal mines, I think. And he sent you ounces
of gold, right?
MRS. T.: Great big pieces of gold.... sent to know if they arrived or
did not arrive. Only if, he said, only if he could know it. Yes, so they sent the stamps (registered mail). That they sent them.
Then he said, "Oh yes, yes it is certain," he says.
MRS. G.: He sent by registered mail.
MRS. T.: Oh yes, yes. Registered mail*He would send her mail
for her and her boy.
MRS. T.: In certified letters. Oh how pretty then. Oh they are
things of gold so little and so pretty for the babies.
MRS. G.: She made earrings out of them.
MRS. T.: Who knows what we'd do with a gold piece today!
MRS. G.: What would we do with a gold piece today!
HRS. T.: Some ounces of gold, very pure and fine, and then some little
ones, but.-, look... How very pretty it was then. Now no, it doesn't serve for anything.
HRS. G. : And I think the reason she feels that way I believe is because
of the love and respect one human had for another, you know. Especially among the family were knitted, you know, closely together.
HRS. T.: From so much work, so much hard work. They say the Mexican
has to work hard, because through his work he has what he has. If he does not work, he does not have anything.
HRS. G.: You made tortillas to sell, didn't you?
MRS. T.: Yes. Umhum.
MRS. G.: Then, when you were still with your mother, when your
mother was a widow?
MRS. T.: Yes. Still. I worked with her many times. I worked in
that of the tortillas, until the shoulders just didn't want to
any more, and the arms dropped with every tortilla. At five years of age,
I caught hold of the metate(a type of stone for grinding corn) to make
tort i11 as.
MRS. G.: She was five when they taught her how to use the metate.
MRS. T.: I ended with the shoulders asleep, asleep, of toasted bread, of
tortilla, tortilla, tortilla, tortilla, tortilla, lay , Dios (Oh my God.
literally, but not as strong an expletive in Spanish, but not quite Oh my goodness) Much work, much, much work. Now no (sadly). There is no work now.. Nothing. Days, when the sun came up, and entering work. And when the sun went down, leaving work.
(Later) Because there wasn't a change, there wasn't anything more than one lone laborer, one lone ox. Only one mule. Because there were no burros, not anything. Then there was nothing.
(Ed i ted)
There hens, there coconos (type of turkey).
INT.: What are coconos?
MRS. T.: Those things that go "gordo, gordo, gordo, gordo, gordo
gordo.11 Those are the coconos. The others are I can't remember
the name of those great big animals that there were...
I NT. : Large like...
MRS. T.: Yes, with a huge beak. Llamajeros? No, the 
MRS. T.: Coconitos? Those, yes. We used to eat those. Those were
for eating. They grow very big. Moreover, the beak
MRS. G.: What color were they?
MRS..T.: Well some were sobreadorados.
MRS . G.: Red, oh rust.
MRS. T. : Others were marine blue.
MRS. G.: A deep blue. They weren't turkeys?
MRS. T.: No, no, turkeys are round, round, round, round, round.
They begin at the summit of the hill. Those animals. You don't eat them nor the "lions" either.
MRS. G.: What were "lions"?
MRS. T.: Some animals that were bigger than the oxen.
MRS. G.: I didn't realize this. Now I'm learning something.
She said, now you lived near a forest?
MRS. T. : Umhum. When we went out.
MRS. G.: And there the lions walked?

MRS. T.: There up until where we were. Up to there were lions and rabbits,
those that I was saying that have the very large beak.
And they walked wild in the forest?!
Yes, loose in the forest.
They'd go through a forest, and she'd see all these animals, there were lions there.
We went by the edge of the river.
She said they'd walk by the edge of the river.
HRS. T.:
HRS. G,: It had to be a big cat of some kind they called "1eones"
("lions")* But I have heard of lions in Mexico.
HRS. T.: There they told us of buffaloes.
MRS.G .: Oh buffaloes, water buffaloes. (She repeats to her grandmother)
Buffaloes of the water, that went to the river.
MRS. T.: To the river. They wanted to ram the people because they startled them.
MRS. G.: They'd run after the people.
MRS. T.: Yes. They got scared upon seeing people because they
weren't supposed to know what people were.
INTER.: And you weren't using them for work then, the water
buffa 1oes?
MRS. G.: (Repeating) The water buffaloes, didn't you use them
for work if you caught them?
MRS T. : Well yes, they had this purpose in minc{, but we did not
find out how we could, because they were very valiant.
MRS. G.: Oh she says the people wanted to catch some to work them
and ajlot of them tried, but I guess they couldn't catch ’em.
MRS. T.: Yes, very bad. The water buffalo theywould carry you off,
they would splash up such spray, umm!
MRS. G.: She must have been very close to them!
MRS. T.: Yes. Oh it was so lovely then, j Ay, Dios! (my goodness).
MRS. G.: Can you imagine? She's saying all of this and sheV^till
saying it was beautiful In those days. She said it was beautiful. The wild animals that about ate her up! It was beautiful.
MRS. T.: that so : 1 can't go on remembering without tears coming, good and lighthearted, so lovely, that it was.
MRS. G.: : She says she cries, just to remember.
MRS. T.: Umhum.
MRS. G.: Remembers her time.
to see

RS. T. : The coquenas the I can't remember the names of those
animals. What I am going to do, when you leave, I will write the name of that on a paper. Only thus will I bring it (to mind), true? Otherwise no. Because... They don't want them to walk the flag from here to there. They say that this isn't a toy for
She's slipping back.
MRS. T.: -for carrying it hither and yon, it's not. That's only a pure beauty, to go out once a year, every year, every year, every
What flag, Grandma?
Well, I (surely) I believe it is the one of the Cura Hidalgo.
The Mexican flag, you say?
I think that is the one!
She's remembering the, are you remembering the fiestas with the flag?
The Federa1.
Umhum. The Federal flag.
The flag that commanded all. That one. Then people did respect the family, they respected their parents, their grandparents, their uncles and aunts. Now, no. Now there is no father, there is no mother, there is no dear little grandfather, there is no dear little grandmother. There isn't, no nothing, nothing.
INTER.: I believe in some families, for example in yours, I believe
there is, fortunately.
Oh yes. 1t is thus.

MRS. T.: And because of this, there is much respect because of this.
Because of this the people became afraid when they hear tell of the Federa1. I have no more to say today.
She talks about old age and about the destruction and endings after the revolution).
MRS. T.: It is a depth. I look for it and I look for it, I look to where it is coming from. But how, if it is dead. It is finished. It has ended. The people are ended completely. What a terrible

thing. From the body that I made, everything has ended. Ended, nothing, nothing; nothing remains to show to (all of) you. Only in this manner that I told you, is that not so? One has to double the carefulness. Hold onto it and to look at it as a sacred thing.
Umhum, yes.
MRS. G.: She's talking psychologically.
MRS. T. : That one be given light! There isn't hope, there weren't
hopes.
MRS. G.:Where they were not able to do anything; she's talking about
not only the love and the respect but dignity. That's what she's talking about.
MRS. T.: Yes, umhum. Very hard, very sad. Yes, a very sad thing
to see. (She talks about how resplendent things used to be.)
How many children did you have, senora?
MRS. T.: Fifty. (I had just asked her about the church here.
She answered with respect to that.)
INTER.: What?

MRS. . T. : Fifty.
MRS. . G. : Where, Grandma?
MRS. T. : In, in the in-
MRS. G. : In the church?
MRS. T. : Yes.
'J
l
£
t. MRS. G.: worked wi In her time 1 guess there were fifty girls. And they with th the girls. Because there would be a man to work with the boys In those days the sexes were separated.
MRS. T.: second. Half and half. The men were first and the girls were
MRS. G. : Ah, in the choir.
MRS. -T. : In the choir.
MRS. G. : She was in the choir.
MRS. T. : With the little mothers. There were mothers. There was
everyone. And all this went away, went away, a little, a little less.


INT.: How many children did you have, senora?
H R S. G.: How much family did you have?
HRS. T.: Children were Macedonio, Feliciano and ... (Seven
children were born, six sons, one daughter. Two of the sons Jose, born in Mexico, to whom she refers in the interview and Alejandro, born in the U. S.).

Original Format

Audio Cassette Tape

Duration

Part 1 - 00:29:26

Part 2 - 00:29:41

Bit Rate/Frequency

128kbps